For Real

“Research Shows Fibromyalgia Pain is Real!” the headline says. As I scan the article, I am reminded of the first doctor to diagnose my fibromyalgia. After he explained what it was I had, he said he had something very important to tell me.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “I want you to remember this. Fibromyalgia is real. It is not something you imagine. It’s not in your head. And there is nothing wrong with you mentally or emotionally. The pains you feel, along with the other symptoms, are as real as this table. You are not crazy and don’t ever let anyone tell you different. And they will try. Even the medical professionals, doctors, nurses, they’ll tell you it’s not real. I want you to ignore them. You know it’s real and I know it’s real. One day, they will know too.”

That day has come, it seems. I wonder how that doctor feels reading this study. Vindicated, I imagine, and relieved … and frustrated, no doubt. If only they had taken this seriously fifteen or twenty years sooner.

My current doctor is still frustrated, and not just with the attitudes toward fibromyalgia. He sees patients regularly that have some very real problems. No one is listening to them, though. Other doctors, specialists, refuse to accept the observations of family practitioners as valid. While I can understand the need for verifiable research, the immediate brush-off given to peoples’ personal experiences strikes me as wrong.

The attitude taken by modern medicine that ‘if it doesn’t bleed, it ain’t real’ needs some serious rethinking. They readily wax eloquent on the complexities of the human body and the vast amounts of what they do not know when they cannot find a ready answer. And when the patient fails to be satisfied as the problem persists or even worsens, they turn it back on the patient.

Lazy, mentally unstable, emotionally disturbed; these are just a few of the things that have been said about, and to me. I was lucky though. I found two doctors who took me seriously, fibromyalgia and all. I am deeply grateful for their belief in something that, at the time, was not thought “real.” Maybe now that there is scientific proof, those who are diagnosed with fibromyalgia will be given the treatment everyone should have received all along.